Adjusting to a Summer Writing Schedule

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Summer. In some ways, it’s a relief to me because it means I don’t have to keep up as much with the kids’ activities and school-related needs.  But it’s also a time that I regroup.  Because our schedule changes, I’ve found it’s better and I get more done if I’m flexible enough to change my schedule, too.

A blog reader asked me if I could write a little bit about how I’ve changed my summer writing schedule in the past.  Considering I’ve changed it up since my nearly-13-year-old was one, I’m thinking I’m probably qualified to comment on this issue.  :)  But a proviso that this won’t work obviously for all kids or all parents. 

Ages and stages:

Toddlerhood (and preschool is out).  I put my kids in preschool very early. When she was at home (and not much of a napper, ever), I kept my page goal to one double-spaced page a day….so around 250 words.  I found I could hit that pretty easily by two different methods—Sesame Street (she only liked Elmo, though, so I had to pretty much put Elmo on repeat for the 20 or so minutes a page took me at the time) and “nap time” which meant that she and I needed a mental health break from each other and she would have quiet time in her crib with board books for 20 minutes.

The thing I don’t think you want to do here is make a complicated goal.  Make the goal a no-brainer.  If you go over the goal, great, but make sure the next day is a clean slate and you hit your goal again. Don’t sweat missed goals…just pick up as usual the next day without trying to make up for it.

Elementary school:  

My kids were always early risers and so I either needed to get up even earlier than they did (which I could sometimes accomplish), or else I needed to write with them around.  So here were my methods:

Set a visible reminder that I was working:  a sign on the door (a drawing or with words, depending on the age group) and a timer that was ticking.  And I’d make sure to explain that I could be contacted if it were an emergency.  I gave many examples of potential emergencies and examples of things that were not emergencies. Mystery writer Alan Orloff had a wonderful idea for keeping children away when you need to work. He puts a sign on his office door that says: Please come in so we can get started on chores.

Rewarding them by playing a game or reading a book if they were good while I wrote/worked for those 20 or 25 minutes.

Writing earlier than they arose (depending on the age, again, this could be tricky).  If your kids stay up late at night during the summer, see if it’s possible to put your sign/timer outside the door and have a quick writing session (I’m not great in the evenings, so this was less-successful for me).

Writing in a crowd.  Although this may sound counterintuitive, I found that if I invited my children’s friends over, put a bunch of snacks and drinks out, and then retreated to the background with my computer, I could actually get a lot done.  The friends will need to be the sorts who aren’t fond of drama and aren’t easily bored.

Older elementary school/middle school:  

Writing on the go.  Again, this meant bringing friends into the equation.  It also meant that I couldn’t care what I looked like in public.  I took the kids and their friends to the indoor skating rink, bowling alley, or indoor inflatables business, put snacks and drinks out and worked on my laptop.  Found some interesting characters to write about then, too.   I’ve also written at the swimming pool…with my laptop.  Sometimes a notebook is better at the pool, as long as I didn’t write beyond the point where transcribing it would be a pain.

A note on this—I got extraordinary amounts of work done this way. I think being at home can be more distracting than being in public with a bunch of people.  I’m not sure why.

Other considerations:

Can we cut back for a summer schedule?  Maybe not with our writing, but can we cut back whatever promo or social media or blogging we’re doing?

Can we keep our writing and writing-related tasks relegated to certain times of the day so that we don’t feel as if we’re not doing fun family things?  Can we make an official quitting time so we’re not dragging everything out throughout the day?

I think cutting back on blogging during challenging times works really well…the key is to let readers know what our new schedule is.  We could announce it on our blogs, put it in our sidebars, etc.

For me this means:

I’m still planning on beating everyone up to write.  Instead of 4:45 a.m., this may fall back to 6:00 a.m.

I’ll be blogging each Monday and Friday in addition to my Sunday Twitterific and an occasional Wednesday guest blogger on my blog (so cutting out one blogging day during the summer–probably until September).

I may post a lighter Twitter feed during the summer (other bloggers cut back in summers, too, making content sometimes more difficult/time-consuming to locate/curate).  So instead of scheduling 18 tweets, maybe it will be down to 14.

I’m going to make sure my kids (who are 17 and almost-13 now) understand when I’m working.  I’m sure it’s frequently hard for them to tell.  When I’m on a laptop, I could be doing almost anything: responding to an email, reading blogs, writing blog posts, working on my book, or checking news sites.  If I have 25 or 30 uninterrupted minutes, I can get so much done.

That being said, I need to make sure that the 25 or 30 minute blocks are totally focused.  So I need to disconnect my Wi-Fi if I think I might cheat.  No being distracted by bright, shiny objects online.

I’ll try to make sure that when I’m with my kids and husband, I’m completely present when I’m “off duty” for the writing related work.

If I’m traveling, I’ll write earlier than my hosts get up.  It’s good to start the day with an accomplishment.

I may reassess what I’m doing after a month.

This was a parent-centric post, but many writers experience other types of schedule interruptions in the summer—vacation, travel, the allure of being outside when the weather is nice, etc.  How are you adjusting your schedule for summer—if you are?

Image: MorgueFile: shannontanski

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